


Full-Bloom Flower

by PlumTea



Series: Horror A La Carte [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Body Horror, Hanahaki Disease, M/M, Medical Conditions, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 10:48:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12529616
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PlumTea/pseuds/PlumTea
Summary: Oikawa's been sick since he was ten years old, and now there are thorns stuck in his throat.Stupid parasites.





	Full-Bloom Flower

**Author's Note:**

> Day 5: Talent Is Something You Make Bloom  
>  **plants / thorns** / tentacles / **growths** / festering / corruption / too many limbs / maybe not enough limbs  
> For [Iwaoi Horror Week!](https://iwaoi-horror-week.tumblr.com/)

Iwaizumi invites Oikawa to go beetle-hunting in the woods every Saturday in the summer, and Oikawa always comes along. Oikawa’s not the best with bugs, not after a girl threw a slug in his hair, but he comes along because Iwaizumi asked him. Iwaizumi could have asked anyone in the class, but he asked _him_.

There are noises in the woods. _Of course there are_ , Oikawa thinks. This is the home of bugs and rabbits and deer. Maybe even a bear. He’s never seen a bear up close, but he knows they’re bigger than he is.

A leaf crackles and Oikawa jumps. “Did you hear that?” he asks Iwaizumi.

“Hear what?”

“I heard something. You think something’s following us?”

“A rabbit maybe.”

“What if it isn’t a rabbit?”

“You don’t have to worry when you’re with me. I've got your back.”

Iwaizumi crosses his arms in absolute confidence and Oikawa feels a sharp pain right below his stomach.

* * *

 

The doctor looks at the charts. It’s the fifth time he’s done so in the last two minutes. Oikawa’s mother is patting his back, trying to warm him up in the cold office.

“Ms. Oikawa,” the doctor finally starts, and his mother pauses, “we believe your son has hanahaki.”

“So young?” He hears the tremble in his mother’s voice and knows that something is wrong.

“Yes, it seems that the pain he felt was the parasite latching itself into his GI. It’s still in its very early stages and he should feel some discomfort from time to time, but it won’t become an issue until he’s older. He seems to have gotten a troublesome strain early.”

“But doesn’t hanahaki only happen if—”

“Yes.” The doctor turns to him, a smile that doesn’t look right on his face. “Tooru, have you been feeling strange around anyone lately?”

“Strange?”

“Do you feel hot, like you have a fever? Or maybe you feel your stomach gets weird? But on top of that, you feel really happy?”

 _Iwa-chan._ Did Iwaizumi get him sick? Iwaizumi wouldn’t ever want Oikawa to get sick- he’s the one who’s always telling Oikawa to be careful when they go tadpole-hunting by the river. And Iwaizumi doesn’t look sick, either.

Either way, he knows that if he tells the doctor that Iwaizumi got him sick, then his parents will never let him see Iwaizumi ever again. “N-No,” he stammers out.

“Tooru, are you sure?” His mother looks at him like she knows he’s lying.

“Uh-huh.”

His doctor sighs a bit. “If he doesn’t disclose the name, then there isn’t much I can do. Luckily, it’s not a fatal disease, but the effects will remain. The quickest solution is surgery. I know a specialist in removing hanahaki, if you’d like me to pass their name along.”

“I don’t think we can afford…”

“I understand. In that case, please don’t be afraid to contact me if the symptoms start acting up again.”

On the way home, his mother doesn’t say much. She clutches Oikawa’s hand firmly, even on the bus ride home. “Are you sure you don’t know who?” she asks him.

“No,” he mumbles. He doesn’t like lying to his mother, but he doesn’t like the idea of never seeing Iwaizumi again even more.

Oikawa sneaks onto the family computer late at night and looks up some of the big words he remembered the doctor say.

_Hanahaki disease is a common parasitic infection. According to the Health Policy Bureau, it affects about 3.5 million people in the country, usually in the age bracket of 13~25…_

_…The organism will cause an infection in the upper gastrointestinal tract. It proliferates as a result of increased hormonal production, usually through those experiencing a one-sided love. Once the organism reaches maturity, it will begin to bloom, causing the host to vomit substances that resemble flower petals. It cannot be spread through normal physical contract, or through…_

He’s not sure what half of the article means, but he knows that one day flowers are going to come out of his throat, and it’s all Iwaizumi’s fault.

* * *

 

He gets used to the weird churning in his stomach. In fact, it’s enough that he can play volleyball without a problem. Most importantly, he finds that he isn’t in constant pain whenever Iwaizumi is around. Most of the time, they can chat, practice, argue, watch stupid old movies without his stomach feeling like it’s been cut apart.

Iwaizumi’s big grin after they win a match. “Yes!” he’d yell, and hold his fist out for Oikawa to bump.

His even voice when Oikawa calls him late at night when his thoughts won’t stop whirling. “You know I can just come on over, right? Or we can continue talking. Whatever you want.”

“If you want it so bad, here you go,” he’d say, and hand Oikawa a tiny rose from a bouquet he bought as a return gift for White Day.

Every time, Oikawa channels all his strength to not scream in pain as something rips up his throat. No flowers yet, but it feels like something sharp is slowly crawling up towards his mouth.

He keeps a smile on and pretends like everything’s okay.

That is, until he goes to brush his teeth one night and feels something out of the corner of his mouth. Maybe it’s a piece of corn he forgot to floss out. He picks at it with his nail, but something is _definitely_ stuck in the corner of his mouth.

In the mirror, he sees something long and green curled up by his cheek. It’s thin, and feels smooth, until something pricks him. His finger comes back bloody, and there he sees a curved thorn sticking up into the space of his throat.

* * *

 

Hanamaki forgets to chew his rice, and Matsukawa takes an agonizingly long slurp from his water bottle. “Hey, Oikawa, I think you got a little something…” Hanamaki gestures towards his mouth.

“Yeah. I know. And it’s not contagious, they made sure of that already.”

“Does it hurt?”

“Not really. Only when it starts growing. It’s like, mm, know when you get rice stuck in your throat and it feels really weird? Kind of like that, all the time.”

“You know, I think I saw something like this in 2ch forums once.”

“Mattsun, we’re no longer friends.”

“Still, that’s the freakiest hanahaki I’ve ever seen. I mean, Mizuno from Class 2 throws up petals, but they’re tiny. And they’re not a vine.”

Hanamaki grins at him. “He still doesn’t know, huh. Well, he’ll have to figure it out now that you’ve something coming out of your mouth.”

Oikawa groans. He wants to say something eventually, but it never felt like the right time.

Instead Iwaizumi just asks him, in that gruff, frank way of his, if everything’s alright. If he needs help with anything, or if he wants to complain about something. “But not too much. I like having ears.”

Oikawa feels the edge of the thorns cutting up his throat, and as the vine creeps out between his lips, he says, “Okay.”

* * *

 

“I’ve never seen anything like this. Normally hanahaki flowers resemble violets or camellias, but this…” The tongue depressor is a flat worm in his mouth. “…No, this is more like a rose.”

“Is that bad?” he asks as much as his tongue will allow.

“The ‘thorns’ will agitate your throat, but not unless it begins to grow. But it hasn’t bloomed yet, has it?”

“No.”

“Very strange.” The doctor removes the depressor from his mouth, and types some notes into the computer. “Surgery would remove it from your body entirely. And then there’s therapy afterward.”

“I’m used to physical therapy by now.”

“Well, you don’t want to name who made you susceptible to this illness in the first place, and I’ll continue to respect that. But after surgery, whoever they are, you’ll have to give up your feelings for them.” The doctor sees the tenseness on his face and adds, “Remember, the parasite grows on your blood and hormones. Of course, nobody expects the recovery process to be quick or easy. We offer extensive therapy…”

“I’ll think about it.”

In the lobby, he finds Iwaizumi sitting in the lounge with their gym bags by his feet. He didn’t say that he’d be waiting, but of course he’d be.

“What did the doctor say?” he asks, gathering both their bags over his shoulder.

“I might need surgery.”

“Going to do it?”

“Not sure.”

“What’s stopping you?”

“You know,” Oikawa smiles through half-truths. “Club, mostly. Not with university scouts going around. It’s not like it’s any worse than my knee.”

If Oikawa hadn’t fallen for this meteor that came crashing into his life, then maybe he would’ve gone through his life parasite-free.

* * *

 

“You’ve got to say something.”

“I know, Makki! Give it time, time!”

“Okay but…” Hanamaki looks at the accessory Oikawa has made for himself. “I don’t even know what to say. Iwaizumi’s already said his fair share.”

“‘Positive until your brain melts’ was my personal favorite,” Matsukawa adds.

“I don’t know, ‘giant dumbass’ was pretty good too. It’s a classic.”

“If I’m going to have a giant vine growing out of my mouth, then I’m going to put it to good use! I have an image to uphold!” On top of brushing his hair, it took him a good two hours to bend the vine into something that resembles his sister’s hairpiece. His fingers were bloody by the end of it, but he looped the straight vine to make a six-petaled flower and pinned it to his hair. It’s almost pretty, if he ignores the fact that it’s growing out of his intestines.

Hanamaki and Matsukawa both keep looking at him. Their exasperation is shadowed by the harsh light above them.

“I mean, we don’t know how that feels. Neither of us have thorns in our throat. But doesn’t it hurt?”

He pouts, taking an interest in the blackboard instead of Matsukawa. He feels a bad mood coming on, and he doesn’t want to be in a bad mood right now. His friends are calling him out because they’re worried about him. He’s had a parasite living inside him since he was ten years old, and now it’s a gross, thorny vine. He can pull and pinch it into whatever shape he wants, but it won’t go away until he does something about it.

He knows Iwaizumi would take the confession well, because Iwaizumi’s a good guy. Iwaizumi’s a great guy who would turn him down, but stick by him because they’ve been best friends forever. “I love you, just not like that,” he’d say, and Oikawa would have to deal with the ache that he’s loved, but not the way he wants. Or he could have surgery, and have to stay away from Iwaizumi for the isolation therapy.

One way he loses Iwaizumi. The other way, he loses Iwaizumi.

The vine grows, grows, grows.

* * *

 

He’s crouching by the clubroom door with his vine in his hair and his sports bag over his shoulder, because Hanamaki and Matsukawa are the absolute worst. Not only did they boot him out of the gym, but they also duct taped his locker shut so he couldn’t change.

“You can come back in when you’ve told Iwaizumi,” Hanamaki sweetly said before slamming the door in his face.

Iwaizumi sighs when he gets booted out. He kicks the door hard enough to rattle it on the frame and then turns to Oikawa. “Guess we’re not having practice today.”

“It’s one day off,” Oikawa mumbles. His face is red between his arms.

Iwaizumi grunts, and pokes Oikawa with his foot. “Come on, let’s go home.”

They walk down the streets at sunset the same way they always do, with Oikawa huffing about something and Iwaizumi responding sharply to everything he says.

Iwaizumi’s hand is calloused and he doesn’t really care how Oikawa’s hair is styled. It’s the same hand that’s messed up his hair time and time again, but this time it’s careful as he adjusts the clip holding the vine in place.

Oikawa’s heart is pounding in his throat, up and down the thorny vine. Maybe the time is right. Maybe he can kiss Iwaizumi, the way he’s kissed his girlfriends before, light and brief, enough to mean something. Or maybe he can stand still like he’s doing right now, and wait for Iwaizumi’s eyes to come back on him again before he moves.

Or maybe he’s just overthinking it, and this isn’t his love story after all.

“When did it get so big?”

“I don’t know.” Once when Iwaizumi surprises him with milk bread on his off days, and another when Iwaizumi gives him extra tofu even if it’s his favorite food. “I’ve had it for so long, I don’t remember.”

There’s a stretch of silence as a cyclist passes them, gears whirring.

“Do you remember when you first had to take me to the doctor?”

“Yeah, we didn’t catch any beetles that day.” Iwaizumi clicks his teeth together and asks, “Is that when it started?”

Oikawa forgets he’s in his body for a moment. “How did you know?” comes out no louder than a breeze.

“I’m your best friend,” Iwaizumi grumbles. “Did you honestly think I didn’t realize that you’d only get stomachaches around me?”

Of course. The vines rip at his throat as they coil around the clip, faster than ever. His heartbeat is mad under his skin, and Iwaizumi is staring at him, horrified as the thorns bring blood from his mouth and turn six petals into eight, ten, twelve.

His chest and stomach and head feel impossibly warm and the vines are curling madly, frantically, as the first bud erupts. No matter where he looks, he sees the frayed edges on Iwaizumi’s shorts, the dark silhouette of Godzilla on his shirt, the dip of his collarbone, the hair tucked behind his ears.

But all he can say is, “You’re unbelievable,” and he means the entire kaleidoscope of it.

The bud explodes into rose petals, blood red.

“Iwa-chan, I think I—”

“I know,” Iwaizumi catches Oikawa by the arm, and pulls him close. The thorns scratch at his cheeks, but he pushes his face right into Oikawa’s. “Why can’t you just say these things normally?”

“Then—”

“Of course.”

“Oh,” Oikawa says, thin and reedy.

He wonders if he had thorns growing behind his eyes instead of out of his guts. He swallows, and finds his throat shifts without something in its side for the first time in seven years.

“But if we’re talking about normal, I bet Iwa-chan didn’t even get me a confession present.”

Iwaizumi stares at him for one moment and kicks him the next. “You scared me half to death and then you ask for a present? You’re impossible.”

“That just shows that Oikawa-san will have to take the lead! Luckily, I have a beautiful rose right here.”

“Don’t give me your parasite stomach flower!”

“It’s a _romantic_ parasite stomach flower. And don’t just stare, take it. I grew it just for you.”

Iwaizumi’s mouth wrinkles, after a deep breath, he plucks the rose off the vine. The red petals are a gleaming pool in the middle of his hand, and folds up neatly into his pocket. “No more flowers, though.”

It’s not like they’ll need them, ever again. Just one was enough. “No more flowers.”

**Author's Note:**

> When you're writing at 1AM, you end up rationalizing how hanahaki can be a thing.


End file.
